There are many popular well known opinions on why people get fat.

But you never hear anything on the opposite condition, why some people can eat several thousand calories a day of mostly unwholesome food and NOT get fat....even while living a relatively sedentary lifestyle.

Lets hear some explanations people???

Genetics, exercise.

I know a person who hates exercise and has pretty good muscles. Some of these things are just random.

Genetics, exercise.

Genetics...as it affects what specifically?

As it specifically affects your big fat ass. :D

As it specifically affects your big fat ass. :D
Ok, but how?

The chemistry please?

Some genes seem to lend themselves to slimness. If I could isolate them, I'd be rich. Dunno.

I guess I just burn it off without trying. I have a mother fucker of a metabolism. It's shitty weather here and most people are wearing normal clothes, with sleeves. I'm wearing 3/4 length pants and a cropped top. :D

I guess I just burn it off without trying. I have a mother fucker of a metabolism.
Now we're getting somewhere...metabolism is controlled by the thyroid gland.

Exclusively???

I haven't done any formal exercise in months and I had been eating only junk food, I gained a whole lot of weight but I didn't get fat. Maybe it has something to do with fat distribution. Or just like how people get fat there are probably several reasons people stay slim.

I haven't done any formal exercise in months and I had been eating only junk food, I gained a whole lot of weight but I didn't get fat. Maybe it has something to do with fat distribution. Or just like how people get fat there are probably several reasons people stay slim.
One theory has it that fat deposits in the wrong places are simply storage for toxins.

And that these can only be removed by fasting or other de-toxification disciplines.

MARIE! TERRIBLE! :D

If you want to remove deposits of fat permanently from your arse, I highly recommend running and a reduced calorie diet.

If you want to remove deposits of fat permanently from your arse, I highly recommend running and a reduced calorie diet.
A fat ass is a delectable asset...for a women.

Distribution is everything!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEbEMjKitA4

MARIE! TERRIBLE! :D

If you want to remove deposits of fat permanently from your arse, I highly recommend running and a reduced calorie diet.

WHAT? Why would I do that? I like my ass the size it is. :p

WHAT? Why would I do that? I like my ass the size it is. :p

You don't see it very much do you! :p

There are many popular well known opinions on why people get fat.

But you never hear anything on the opposite condition, why some people can eat several thousand calories a day of mostly unwholesome food and NOT get fat....even while living a relatively sedentary lifestyle.

Lets hear some explanations people???



It may have to do with enzyme MGAT2....


Nature Medicine 15, 442 - 446 (2009)

Deficiency of the intestinal enzyme acyl CoA:monoacylglycerol acyltransferase-2 protects mice from metabolic disorders induced by high-fat feeding
Yen, C. et al.m, 2009 (http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v15/n4/full/nm.1937.html)

Animals are remarkably efficient in absorbing dietary fat and assimilating this energy-dense nutrient into the white adipose tissue (WAT) for storage. Although this metabolic efficiency may confer an advantage in times of calorie deprivation, it contributes to obesity and associated metabolic disorders when dietary fat is abundant. Here we show that the intestinal lipid synthesis enzyme acyl CoA:monoacylglycerol acyltransferase-2 (MGAT2) has a crucial role in the assimilation of dietary fat and the accretion of body fat in mice. Mice lacking MGAT2 have a normal phenotype on a low-fat diet. However, on a high-fat diet, MGAT2-deficient mice are protected against developing obesity, glucose intolerance, hypercholesterolemia and fatty livers. Caloric intake is normal in MGAT2-deficient mice, and dietary fat is absorbed fully. However, entry of dietary fat into the circulation occurs at a reduced rate. This altered kinetics of fat absorption apparently results in more partitioning of dietary fat toward energy dissipation rather than toward storage in the WAT. Thus, our studies identify MGAT2 as a key determinant of energy metabolism in response to dietary fat and suggest that the inhibition of this enzyme may prove to be a useful strategy for treating obesity and other metabolic diseases associated with excessive fat intake.


Other sources:



MGAT2 is one of three MGAT enzymes found in the intestines of both mice and humans. Cutting MGAT activity with drugs could be another way to combat obesity, the scientists believe. Dr Robert Farese, from the University of California at San Francisco, and colleagues, reduced MGAT activity in mice by more than half by knocking out MGAT2.
Source (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4995048/Fat-enzyme-explains-why-some-people-dont-get-flabby.html)



The enzyme MGAT2 is found in the intestines and determines the fate of our food by regulating how it is metabolized: It either makes fat go straight to your waistline, or converts it into energy. Scientists in California have discovered that when mice are missing the gene for MGAT2, they can eat whatever they want and never have to worry about getting fat.
Source (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2009/03/17/why-do-some-people-never-get-fat-scientists-may-have-the-answer/)




Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD) have found that a key enzyme involved in absorbing fat may also be a key to reducing it. The enzyme, acyl CoA: monoacylglycerol acyltransferase 2 or Mgat2 is found in the intestines and plays an important part in the uptake of dietary fat by catalyzing a critical step in making triglyceride, a kind of fat.
Source (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090316092012.htm)


So, I am guessing that in fat people this enzyme is absence.. Now I wonder whether this enzyme can be synthesized, enriched and "injected" into people with obesity problem..

Biochemistry, first semester. You'll get your answers there. There are dozens (probably hundreds) of proteins involved with metabolism and digestion. You can't begin to look at this question without a lot of background reading.

Thanks for posting Inzomnia...good info!

There are many popular well known opinions on why people get fat.

But you never hear anything on the opposite condition, why some people can eat several thousand calories a day of mostly unwholesome food and NOT get fat....even while living a relatively sedentary lifestyle.

Lets hear some explanations people???

Exercise, genetics, high metabolism, tobacco and other drugs...there are a lot of potential explanations.
:m:

Ok, but how?

The chemistry please?

I don't think we know the chemistry. But as others have said there are a very large number of explanations.

For me personally, I fidget like none other. An NYtimes article was talking about how "fat" people tend to be more efficient in their actions and that fidgeting can burn up to 20 pounds a year. So there's yet another explanation right there.

There are many popular well known opinions on why people get fat.

But you never hear anything on the opposite condition, why some people can eat several thousand calories a day of mostly unwholesome food and NOT get fat....even while living a relatively sedentary lifestyle.

Lets hear some explanations people???

+1 for Genetics.

faster metabolismus?

Tapeworms or chronic infections (that give you the runs, say) take the pounds off.

Watching TV puts them on. It's something to do with the timing of the jump cuts and scrolls - they calm you down, make you sit very still and breathe slowly, and impart a desire to eat Cheetos.

Don't believe me? Compare the people you see riding 63 to the 20-man bus with room for chickens in the places with tapeworms and no TV, to the people waddling solo and sideways through standard revolving doors in the places with TV and no tapeworms.

There are many popular well known opinions on why people get fat.

But you never hear anything on the opposite condition, why some people can eat several thousand calories a day of mostly unwholesome food and NOT get fat....even while living a relatively sedentary lifestyle.

Lets hear some explanations people???

They're probably just "blessed" with a great metabolism. I quote "blessed" because it's a double-edged sword really, you may think you're healthy because you have abs, but your arteries are thinking "gettin' kind of crowded in here". I have a very skinny negroid friend who has the worst imaginable diet, and his only exercise is working backshift stocking shelves in a grocery store where he and his coworkers always rip open bags of candy and fill their greedy faces, etc, and he's "falling into cracks on the sidewalk" skinny. By the same token he has pretty bad health, I remember when he had the whooping cough, he sounded like a dying panda. His arteries are obviously shitty, in fact, if you hold his wrists up to the light you can see watermelon seeds and bits of chicken coursing through his veins, it's only a matter of time.

I've read that certain people lack the genes to digest certain foods, like wheat. It just goes in one end and out the other like celery. Otherwise, what I've heard is that the biggest factor genetics are thought to play is in the control of appetite. I've known some super skinny SOB's who would pig out on junk food every now and then, but they would also go for long stretches without eating much of anything and they would hardly even think about it.

It's probably a matter of hormone balance.

If you left things alone, the death rate resulting from obesity and its effects on human attractiveness would probably lead to higher metabolism, but only in rich Western nations. In nations affected by poverty, things would go the other way.

Nature doesn't want to make you fat and ugly, it's doing its best.

Scientists working with mice have recently used a combination of hormones to produce almost immediate dramatic weight loss.

This is probably not the best article on the subject, but it states the general facts
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/07/weight-loss.html

Genetics...as it affects what specifically?

Fast metabolism...

How can I slow down my metabolism? I'm skinny as f*ck, eat like a pig but am still super skinny. ....

How can I slow down my metabolism? I'm skinny as f*ck, eat like a pig but am still super skinny. ....

http://www.ehow.com/how_2088163_gain-weight-fast-metabolism.html

How can I slow down my metabolism? I'm skinny as f*ck, eat like a pig but am still super skinny. ....
Dont eat more...a better solution would be to have a small part of your thyroid gland surgically removed, the gland which controls metabolism.

Some people have it destroyed completely with a radioactive solution containing iodine...goes right to the thyroid and kills it.

...I'm not going to undergo any surgery just to gain a little weight. But thanks for the info anyway...

People get fat, my auntie she very fat.
Mochine no get fat.

Dont eat more...a better solution would be to have a small part of your thyroid gland surgically removed, the gland which controls metabolism.

Some people have it destroyed completely with a radioactive solution containing iodine...goes right to the thyroid and kills it.

Radioactive iodine. It's the drug that the authorities don't want you to have.
Get rid of that stupid old thyroid.
Where can people buy this great stuff?

I do believe that fidgety types are, on average, significantly thinner than lazy types. Thin people also tend to be more alert, more observant, and more on the ball than fat people. That's my observation, for what it's worth.

I am between 6'0 and 6'1, and my weight fluctuates within 5 lbs of 160 lbs, which is pretty slim. I do happen to be very active, and I'm pretty strong, but I'm also definitely one of the fidgety types and in fact when I am sitting down in one spot for more than 15 minutes or so, I tend to get VERY restless. By one hour, I'm ready to bounce off a wall.

I have to admit though, I do keep track of about how many hundreds of calories I go through in a day. I eat between 1900 and 2300 a day... which is somewhat below average. Most people just eat too much food. :o

Give us an example of a time when you, as a fidgety, alert person, observed something that a fat lazy person did not.

I do believe that fidgety types are, on average, significantly thinner than lazy types. Thin people also tend to be more alert, more observant, and more on the ball than fat people. That's my observation, for what it's worth.

I am between 6'0 and 6'1, and my weight fluctuates within 5 lbs of 160 lbs, which is pretty slim. I do happen to be very active, and I'm pretty strong, but I'm also definitely one of the fidgety types and in fact when I am sitting down in one spot for more than 15 minutes or so, I tend to get VERY restless. By one hour, I'm ready to bounce off a wall.

I have to admit though, I do keep track of about how many hundreds of calories I go through in a day. I eat between 1900 and 2300 a day... which is somewhat below average. Most people just eat too much food. :o


I heard of a study that found fidgety people are skinnier... they found fidgety people tend to burn about 200 calories per day more than the "sit still" type.

I always laugh when a fat person tells a skinny person to "sit still" and "finish your plate."

Give us an example of a time when you, as a fidgety, alert person, observed something that a fat lazy person did not.

I notice things in movies that my fatter friends don't notice (like continuity errors). My reaction time is faster than my fat friends. I drive faster than my fat friends. My fat friends can sit still longer than I can.

I drive faster than my fat friends.

Of course you can, you weigh less. The total weight is more.
That's physics!

That which is more than a particular body requires winds up as fat on the body. Eating less than your body requires causes loss of weight.

I notice things in movies that my fatter friends don't notice (like continuity errors). My reaction time is faster than my fat friends. I drive faster than my fat friends. My fat friends can sit still longer than I can.

That's eerie. I am thin and seem to have a high metabolism, and I have the exact same eye for detail that you do. I notice little things like that all the time.

Lets hear some explanations people???

Uh who knows. Maybe thier bodies are not absorbing as much, perhaps they are crapping in larger volumes than thier fatso counterparts. If you dump more out you dont put it on....:D

Here's an excerpt from the book "The Human Body" by Logan Clendening which I highly recommend for a great introduction to human anatomy/physiology for the layman! There's a reference to two figures that I couldn't bring up because my scanner doesn't work but I think his words are descriptive enough to get a good idea.







"The Combination of weight and height results in a general build of the body which may be called habitus. If you will classify all the people you see in a crowded room on the basis of general body contour, you will find that you have three general divisions -- thin ones, heavy ones, and medium ones. If the crowd is large enough, you can range a line of them from the long, thin greyhound type at one end to the broad, stocky Clydesdale at the other, the difference between any two individuals in the row being almost imperceptible.

The difference between a thin and a heavily built person is, however, far deeper than the surface, and those differences have great bearing on their health and disease proclivities. Figures 7 and 8 show extreme examples of torsos of both types, with the internal organs indicated as they were shown by composite X-ray photographs.

Compare them carefully. Notice first how the ribs flare out from the midline at the junction of the chest and the abdomen. In the thin person this angle is very narrow, in the heavy one very wide. This so-called "costal angle" is a rough index of the type of individual with which you are dealing. Notice the comparative size of the chest. The thin type has enormous lungs, more than he needs for his nutritional needs, so that air does not blow in and out of all his lung spaces, and these people are peculiarly liable to tuberculosis; it is, when you think of it, a typically "consumptive" build. The heavy one, on the contrary, has very small lungs, and because he does not regularly breathe in and out a good over-supply of oxygen to burn all the food he eats, it accumulates in the form of fat, and this may have something to do with his obesity. Notice the two hearts, and the main blood-vessel coming from the heart, the aorta. In the thin one the heart hangs dependent, with a long, elastic aorta; in the heavy one it is squat, with a short, wide aorta. The thin ones seldom have heart or arterial diseases, and if they live past youth, the period of tuberculosis, they are likely to live for ever: notice that at least sixty per cent of very old people are of this type. The heavily built, on the other hand, for some reason that is not certainly determined, appear to have associated in their germ plasms a tendency towards arterial degeneration and high blood-pressure with their stockiness; life-insurance companies shy away from overweight risks. This tendency is crystallized in the common exclamation: "He looks as if he might be going to have an apoplexy." Much more significant and regular in occurrence than any of these is the architecture of the digestive tract in the two types. The stomach of the thin one is long and drooping; the outlet of the stomach, the pylorus, is held high (by a strong and constant ligament) and there is some mechanical difficulty in getting a meal moved up from the low-hanging stomach out into the intestines. Hence these people are likely to have a heavy feeling and gas after eating; if you come to think of it, they are also the typical "dyspepsia" type. For the same reason that the stomach hangs low -- on account of the long abdomen and the thin abdominal wall, unbuttressed by a layer of fat -- the intestines sag, and especially the large intestine: they are likely to be constipated and augment this tendency by consuming cathartics. The heavier ones score on this point: his stomach is small and high places and empties easily; hence he enjoys the happiness of the table, is an epicure; and this really adds to his tendency to overweight. For this reason also, as life goes on, his islets of Langerhans become sclerotic, which gives him a tendency towards diabetes. His intestines are high, supported by thick abdominal walls and intra-abdominal fat, and he is seldom constipated. Thus each has his tendencies, his dangers, and his distresses.

But there is further a mental view-point, a disposition, as we say, which goes with each type. The thin one, because his muscles are long and slender, because his digestive tract is poorly upheld, is easily fatigued. But he may be just as ambitious as anyone else. He is constantly laying out programs for himself that he cannot carry through. This breeds melancholy and dissatisfaction. The heavy ones are much more likely to be able to accomplish their tasks easily. So they are cheerful, jovial, get through their work in a few hours, look back on it with pleasure, and are ready to begin a party at half past four in the afternoon. They like marriage feasts and christenings. The thin ones like divorces and funerals: you will find them comforting the misunderstood wives or arranging the flowers. The heavy ones like poker; the thin ones solitaire. The heavy ones are interested in getting just the right flavor to their cocktail; the thin ones in getting the most potent fluid extract of cascara. The heavy ones read Eddie Guest, Conan Doyle, and the Saturday Evening Post; the thin ones Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, and the Atlantic. The thin ones are always starting out to reform something; the heavy ones have found that it saves trouble to subscribe to the cause right away and take no further part in it, knowing from experience that the thin ones will not have the endurance to carry the reform to any uncomfortable extreme.

These things are said, of course, in a very general way. There are, it is acknowledged, plenty of exceptions. But let it not be supposed that there is not abundant evidence for the statements made. Indeed, a recent author [my note: recent for this publication in like 1922], Dr. George Draper of New York, in a book entitled The Human Constitution... ..has gone far beyond any of my tame statements. He has made careful measurements of all kinds over thousands of bodies -- such as the angle of the jaw -- the gonial angle. He makes statements tending to show that a certain type of individual is disposed towards gall-stones, while a different type is disposed towards ulcer of the stomach -- and that the gall-stone individual will seldom have ulcer and that the ulcer people seldom have gall-stones. There is a pernicious-anemia type of face, an asthma type of face, and so on.

And all of these statements are fortified by table after table of exact measurements, collected in the most painstaking fashion by a conservative and scientific physician.

In the words of Sir Arthur Keith, who writes an introduction to the book, Dr. Draper "seeks to link up the machinery of growth, the machinery which gives the human body its shape, texture, and constitution, with its liability to disorder -- to disease." As the title of his book implies, he has laid a scientific foundation for that idea which we young fellows used to laugh at so hard, that the family physician was the best man to call in because he understood his patient's "constitution."

What can be done to help guide a constitutionally thin or heavy person past his dangers? Considering the inherent difficulties of the task, a good deal. For the ones we have called the thin people -- other names have been given them, as carnivorous, asthenic, hyperontomorph, linear -- they should sooner or later be brought to a realization of the very important fact for them that they have not the same powers of endurance as other people with stronger structures. This sounds very logical as put down here, but it is astonishing how long it takes some of these people to come to this conviction, how much turmoil they go through, how many diagnoses are pronounced upon them. My colleagues in the medial profession have been very slow to grasp this idea of the whole man. It is, along with another matter which I shall speak of in the chapter on the relation of mind to body, the greatest reproach which, I believer, can be laid at their door in modern days. Because the patient complains of a pain in a particular spot -- say the stomach -- doctors are apt to concentrate their attention on that spot and make a diagnosis of ulcer of the stomach or gall-stones, or atony of the stomach; or, if the patient complains of backache, they diagnose lumbago, or focal infection, or scoliosis. They see the little area where the symptoms are and miss the sight which is always so difficult to get just because it is so obvious -- they miss the whole person. The matter of diagnosis, then, should be emphasized because it is both so often wrongly conceived and so primary a consideration for treatment.

Rest for certain periods in the day sufficient to renew the stores of energy which these bodies need is the first element in treatment or adjustment. When leisure permits, they should rest on a bed or a lounge -- that is, in the recumbent position -- for half an hour to an hour after each meal. The time after meals is selected because the recumbent position helps the mechanical difficulty under which the stomach ordinarily labors -- it brings the low part of the stomach upwards and facilities easier emptying. But rest itself is necessary. Dr. Bryant, who conducts a large charity clinic of these patients at the Massachusetts General Hospital, has found, because his patients are under heavy economic necessity, work hard and continuously, and would scorn the idea of lying down an hour after meals, that if he can get them to rest, lying down completely relaxed, five minutes out of every hour, they can in that way get along very well.

Other accessories to treatment are exercise to strengthen the abdomen -- lying on the back and raising the legs to a vertical position -- the wearing of supporting corsets [my note: lol who's actually going to do this?], and an increased diet to fatten up persons of this type. When they reply, as they usually do, that they do not eat because they have no appetite, the answer may be: "An appetite is a luxury, not a necessity." A person can eat without appetite. The hopeful thing about them is that as middle age comes on and their supporting ligaments become stiffer and the stresses of life fade, they will get more and more comfortable and will begin to expatiate on the way of life they have led as an aid to longevity.

The heavy ones -- who have been called also herbivorous and hypersthenic and the lateral type -- must also adjust their way of life to the form of their body. They mist learn to be abstemious at the table, they must renounce the limousine and walk and exercise. The story for them is of the Epicurean philosopher who starved himself for three days in order that he might have the exquisite pleasure of gnawing a stale crust of bread. The trouble with them is that they enjoy existence so much that their fate is upon them before they begin any restrictions. For them, as for the thin ones, their way of life must be a lifelong task."

But there is further a mental view-point, a disposition, as we say, which goes with each type. The thin one, because his muscles are long and slender, because his digestive tract is poorly upheld, is easily fatigued. But he may be just as ambitious as anyone else. He is constantly laying out programs for himself that he cannot carry through. This breeds melancholy and dissatisfaction.

Um, nope. No general weakness here, unless you catch me at the beginning of a period.

Um, nope. No general weakness here, unless you catch me at the beginning of a period.

You might be more on the normal side. In the figures that I couldn't scan there was a picture of that type of person that looks long and cadaverously skinny and another that was more stout and stocky with some fat. I think he was referring more to these "archetypal" body-types.

It's also possible that you're some kind of exception. I remember you mentioning that you drink a lot of red bull which would probably give you some kind of kick - so maybe you're countering the natural fatigue you feel with lots of red bull?

Genetics, metabolism, even un/sub conscious exercise. I know a guy who bounces his legs/knees for hours as he sits online.
I eat a lot but have to exercise it off or I could be prone to an extra inch here or there.
That fidget thing is probably true, too. And caffeine or other drugs.

stateofmind's long post about body types was interesting. Here in America we are getting fatter. I think they now say at least 70% of adult Americans are overweight. If you look around most public places you will see it's true--especially restaurants, stores, churches, etc.

i guess im one of thoes lucky people iv gone a year without working out doing anything eat like shit and still cant gain a pound.. if i do the first time i go for a long run i lose everything i gained im stuck at 170 tryin to get to 190-200 but its just not working.. eating protin carbs lifting every day just getting no where

You might be more on the normal side. In the figures that I couldn't scan there was a picture of that type of person that looks long and cadaverously skinny and another that was more stout and stocky with some fat. I think he was referring more to these "archetypal" body-types.

It's also possible that you're some kind of exception. I remember you mentioning that you drink a lot of red bull which would probably give you some kind of kick - so maybe you're countering the natural fatigue you feel with lots of red bull?

Not really. I'm more on the hyperactive side naturally, unless it's before 11am, in which case I am a low functioning zombie.

The secret to being slim is to have a high metabolism. I'm 6 feet tall, weigh 210 pounds, very little body fat if any, yet for all of my life I seem to be able to eat or drink anything I want. My heart rate increases significantly when I chow down and I can sweat just by standing still. Sometimes it seems like a curse but I'll gladly trade it for no body fat. I am not a big drinker and I don't smoke so maybe that helps, plus I do exercise but not regularly. When I golf, I walk the course. So basically I just don't worry about getting fat.